Patrick E. McGovern, photo by Alison Dunlap
Drinking in the Past: Rediscovering and Recreating Ancient Egyptian Brews
Talk and Beer Tasting
GETTY CENTER
Museum Lecture Hall
This is a past event
Join Patrick E. McGovern, the "Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales, Wines, and Extreme Beverages," as he decodes long-forgotten drink recipes of ancient Egypt. Taking his clues from archaeology, texts, tomb art, ethnography, and chemical analysis of residues inside pottery jars, McGovern unravels what ancient Egyptians were imbibing. Beyond their mind-altering effects, these beverages were to become the medicines, religious symbols, and social lubricants of ancient Egyptian culture for thousands of years. His talk, paired with a special beer tasting, complements the exhibition Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World. Tickets $65 (includes appetizers); ages 21 and over. Complimentary parking.
About Patrick McGovern
Patrick E. McGovern is the scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, where he is also an adjunct professor of anthropology. Over the past two decades, he has pioneered the exciting interdisciplinary field of biomolecular archaeology, which is yielding whole new chapters concerning our human ancestry, medical practice, and ancient cuisines and beverages. He is the author of Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton University Press, 2003), Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages (Berkeley: University of California, 2009) and Ancient Brews: Rediscovered and Re-created (New York: W. W. Norton Company, Inc., 2017), and he appeared regularly on the Discovery Channel's Brew Masters program.
